By rssfeeds-admin The F-35C aircraft went down near South Dickerson and West Cadillac, directly on Mendes’ property. The crash sparked a fire that has since been extinguished, but the aftermath is far from over.
“I got a call from my son,” said Mendes. “There was a jet that crashed. They thought it was in our field.”
Upon arriving at the scene, Mendes said emergency crews were already in place.
“There were already sheriffs, highway patrol, base security,” he added. “So that kind of started a not-so-great evening.”
The pilot was able to safely eject from the aircraft, and no other injuries were reported. However, due to the highly sensitive technology onboard the F-35C, the field is now a federally controlled high-security zone.
“This is an F-35, which has a lot of top-secret stuff on it,” Mendes said. “So you can’t go near it. That area is now completely off-limits.”
Mendes said the jet is expected to remain in the field for at least several months while military investigators conduct their work.
Adding to the complications is the issue of crop loss. The jet crashed into a portion of the field where Mendes grows upland cotton for seed production—a specialized crop not intended for sale in California, but primarily in southern states like Texas.
“Because of the crash, you can’t get back in that field,” he said. “You can’t irrigate it, you can’t spray it. It’s going to eventually be a total loss.”
Although Mendes does carry crop insurance, he explained that the policy only covers natural disasters—not military aircraft accidents.
This isn’t the first time Mendes has experienced a crash on his land. He recalled a similar incident roughly a decade ago, just a few miles from the current site.
“There was a plane crash around 2010 or 2011 about two miles farther south and a little east of here,” he said.
As of now, the cause of the crash remains under investigation by military authorities.
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